Question

what is the most important step in hypothesis testing and why

Answer 1

Hypothesis

Hypothesis is a tentative statement of the expected relationship between two or more variables under study.

Hypothesis helps to trsnlate the reseach problem & objectives into a clear explanation or prediction of the expected results or outcomr of the research study. It also influences the study designs, sampling methods, data collections process & interpretation of the research findings.

The formulation of hypothesis plays an important part in the growth of knowledge in every science. Hypothesis conver

ts the question posed by the research problem into a declarative statement that predict the expected outcome for example smoking causes lung cancer.

Importance of Hypothesis

Provides objectivity to research activity

Provides direction to conduct research

Provides clear & specific role to the researcher

Provides link between theories & actual practical research

It provides understanding to the researchers about what to expect from the results of the research study.

Sources Of Hypothesis

Testing Hypothesis

The most important step in hypothesis testing is to determine that the differences found between two or more groups such as an experimental & control group is a real difference or only a chance difference that occured using inferential statistics ( Which is concerned with the population & use sample data to make an inference about the population or to test the hypothesis considered at the begining of the research study ) because an unrepresentative sample was chosen from the population.

The researcher has to move through few sub steps for the proper completion of the main step.

Firstly, The researcher has to state the null & research hypothesis

Null & Research Hypothesis

Null Hpoothesis ( Ho ) is also called statistical hypothesis& is used for statistical testing & interpretation of statistical outcome. It states the existence of no reletionship between independent & dependent variable

Example; There is no relationship between smoking & the incidence of coronary artery disease

Research hypothesis ( H1 ) states the existence of relationship between tw or more variables.

Example; There is relationship between smoking & incidence of lung cancer.

Then, he has to focus on the errors

	Accept Ho	Reject Ho
Ho ( True )	Correct decision	Type I error ( level of significance )
Ho ( False )	Type II error	Correct decision

In health care setting we generally consider level of significance at 1%(.01 ) or 5%.( .05 ), It means a researcher is willing to take a risk of being wrong 1% or 5% of the times when rejecting a null hypothesis.

The remaining steps coming in hypothesis testing is data is collection for the study with appropriate method & its summarisation then finally computation of the test statistics to find the result.

Theoretical or conceptual framework Academic literature Sources of hypothesis Previous research Real life experiences